


Corporeality

by For_That_Cotton_Candy



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:29:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8297585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/For_That_Cotton_Candy/pseuds/For_That_Cotton_Candy
Summary: Giles feels immense joy when Anya returns, which quickly morphs into complete and utter aggravation. He is unsurprised by this turn of events.





	

“Corporeality”  
BtVS Future Fic  
Giles/Anya  
Smut, schmoop, humor  
NC-17  
Notes: Dead? Anya’s not _dead_!

 

***

“For God’s sake, Anya, you’ve completely ruined my filing system! I can’t find a bloody thing! And _why_ are you sitting behind my desk? That’s _my_ desk! And what is this, an _invoice_?” Giles shouted, rattling a piece of paper in her face. “We do _not_ charge tuition and room and board!”

“Oh, my God! You’re yelling at me! I cannot believe you’re yelling at me!” she said, looking up from the business plan she was working on for the academy, as they were unofficially calling it, her eyes filling with tears. “I’ve only been corporeal for two weeks and you’re _yelling_ at me!”

He gritted his teeth. “I’m not falling for that ‘poor me’ routine, Anya.”

The tears disappeared. “Oh, well. It was worth a shot. And you fell for it the first couple of days, you big twit,” she grumbled, returning to her business plan.

“It must have been the shock of seeing you again and knowing beyond all certainty that _this_ would happen,” he said, shaking the invoice at her again. “And did you just call me a _twit_?”

“Yep,” she said, not looking up from her work.

He stood there helplessly. Ever since Willow had felt Anya’s incorporeal presence and had brought her back, Anya had barged into his office and dove headfirst in his Slayer business and had, thoroughly and completely, turned everything upside down. The joy he’d felt at first seeing her was quickly giving way to complete frustration and he found himself behaving as if he were twelve-years-old and she had taken away his toys.

“Get away from my desk,” he said through clenched teeth.

“No. I’m busy.”

“Anya!” he bellowed, the vein in his left temple starting to throb.

“For the love of the gods, Giles,” she murmured, writing frantically. “I’ve been haunting you for over a _year_ and it’s been driving me absolutely nuts, the way you’ve been running this place. You’ve been in the red the entire time! But I’m here now, and I’m gonna turn this place into a profit-making _machine_!”

Then she looked up at him and smiled the smile of the utterly innocent. “And I know _all_ about those videotapes you keep in your bedroom . . .”

He flushed and spluttered. “You were _spying_ on me?”

“Little bit,” she said, nodding.

He sighed heavily and decided to pretend that that portion of the conversation never happened, and collapsed on to the love seat across from the desk. “Anya,” he said, speaking slowly and deliberately as he tended to do when he was absolutely infuriated. “This is not about _profit_. It’s about getting these girls trained and matched with a Watcher and stationed at strategic locations across the world.”

She sighed. “Giles, I’m not overcharging anyone; well, at least not by much. You do realize that you have expenses, don’t you?” she said. “Food, custodial, housing. Salaries. _My_ salary, now. Willow, Xander, Faith, Buffy’s consulting work, those dowdy women you hired to teach Basic Wicca, and what about Spike and Angel? Champion vampires don’t come cheap, you know.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! I am _not_ hiring Spike and Angel!”

“Yes, you are. On a consulting basis, at least; Angel can’t come on full-time, he wants to keep saving the world. And who better to teach vampire Slayers about slaying vampires than actual vampires?”

“Get away from my desk!” he barked, for lack of anything better to say, irritated beyond reason that she was making so much sense.

“And you know,” she said thoughtfully, looking up at him and pointing with her pen. “Spike’s not as stupid as he likes to pretend he is. And since you’re so short on Watchers . . .”

“No! Absolutely not! There is no way in hell that I’ll recommend _Spike_ to the Watcher’s Academy!”

“And what about Illyria?” Anya continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. “God, I can’t _wait_ to meet her, she’s a legend, you know.”

He rolled his eyes, quickly becoming exhausted. “Anya, she killed an innocent girl.”

“She might not have if you would have done something about it.” He sighed and rubbed at his eyes, not about to get into that argument again. “Besides, she’s killed lots of things. So have I. Demons and god kings can change,” she said, returning to her work.

“You don’t seem to have changed a bit,” he muttered.

She looked at him and smiled brightly. “Thanks!”

“Bloody hell, sometimes I think it would have been better if Willow hadn’t found you and snatched you out of the ether,” he said and instantly regretted it.

She stilled suddenly, staring at him, then slowly put the pen down and stood, walking around the desk and heading for the door.

“Oh, God. Anya,” he said, grabbing at her hand as she moved past him, but she jerked away from him and stalked away, not looking back.

He sighed heavily and dropped his head into his hands. “Giles, you utter bastard,” he murmured into the now still and silent air of his office, realizing, not for the first time, that despite her sometimes infuriating way of doing things, Anya’s presence lent a certain vibrancy and color to her surroundings. He looked wearily around the room. It seemed, now, grey and cold and much too quiet.

***

He found her perched precariously on a log in the heavily wooded area north of the house, her shoe in her hand and staring blankly at the broken heel. He watched her for a while, his chest heavy with regret, and then he sat down beside her.

They sat silence for a long while. 

“Did you mean it?” she asked finally, her voice small and sad.

He sighed and stared at his hands. “Of course I didn’t. Anya, I’m incredibly sorry.”

“Then why did you say it?” she asked, toying with the broken heel of her shoe.

“Because,” he said. “You’re right. About everything. Well, except for the part about Spike as Watcher, but about the rest, you’re right. And you’re rendering me quite useless.”

“But you _are_ useless!”

He groaned and clapped his hands over his eyes and fell over on to his back.

She sighed. “Dammit, I’m doing this all wrong,” she muttered, and moved to kneel beside him. “You’re useless, Giles.” He glared at her through his fingers. “No, listen, what I mean is . . . damn, what I mean is you’re useless. At _that_ ,” she said, waving in the general direction of the house. “You’re not an administrator, you’re a _Watcher_. What I’m trying to do is, I don’t know, _help_ you. _I_ wanted to take care of all that stuff so you could do your Watcher stuff, you know, _Watch_ , train, bury yourself in musty old books and be your old stuffy self again and not have to worry about all the other crap. Make myself useful and set you free, I guess, to do what you’re supposed to be doing.”

He propped himself up on his hands. “Set me free,” he said. “My stuffy old self.”

“Yeah,” she said, shrugging helplessly.

“Anya,” he said gently. “I appreciate that, I really do. But ever since you’ve returned you’ve been . . .”

“A pain in the ass?” she said morosely.

“Well, perhaps, a bit,” he said, smiling slightly. “But I was going to say extremely enthusiastic.”

“Giles,” she whispered, the tears in her eyes now genuine. “It was so _hard_. Watching all of you get on with your lives. Seeing Xander almost get his brains blown out by those guerillas in the Sudan, and then watching him fall in love with that . . . that . . . _girl_ from the Peace Corps who doesn’t even _own_ lipstick, by the way, and he turned into such a stupid, happy dumbass and it was like I never even existed! And then Willow and Kennedy, all lovey-dovey everywhere they went, and Buffy and Dawn living it up in Rome, with the Immortal of all people, you know he’s the only other one besides Xander since I became a vengeance demon to break my heart and here he shows up again, with _Buffy_ , and then knowing what was happening in L.A. and then coming back here and not being able to tell you about it, about how bad it was gonna be, and, _God_ , not being able to touch or to taste or to feel and the entire time . . .” She paused, shaking now. “The entire time, something was coming for me. Black and dark and I was so scared so I just kept moving, place to place, until I just go so tired I gave up and decided to stay here and wait, be here with you when it finally happened, even if you didn’t know it was happening.”

“Good God, Anya,” he said, watching her intently. “I had no idea.”

She picked at the leaves littering the ground, silent.

“Why here?” he asked. “Why me?”

“Because you were the only one besides Xander who really saw me as something more than . . . ‘extremely enthusiastic,’” she said, rolling her eyes. “At least, that’s what I thought, until you said what you said.”

“Anya,” he murmured. “I _am_ sorry.” He reached out and touched her shoulder, and her eyes closed and she shuddered.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

“What is it?” he asked.

“So long,” she said. “Since anybody’s touched me. Even since I’ve been back to be touched . . .”

He blinked in surprise, and then realized that, indeed, nobody had touched her since Willow brought her back. It had just been him and Willow, and while both of them had welcomed her back gladly, neither one of them had hugged her or held her hand. Without further thought he reached out and hauled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her tightly and burying his face in her hair, running one hand up and down up the length of her back. She shuddered again and then started crying, and he rocked her slightly and for a long time until she finally quieted.

“Do you think it was hell?” she whispered, her face buried in his chest. “Coming for me? Was I being punished?”

“I don’t know what happened, Anya,” he said softly. “But you’re here now. Safe and whole and a beloved pain in the ass to my stuffy old self.”

She snorted. “I didn’t mean _old_ old; God knows I’m not one to talk about age.”

“I know what you meant,” he said.

She looked up at him, wiping at her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He stared at her, his eyes taking in the delicacy of her features that was in such contradiction to her sometimes bombastic nature, and he smiled. “You’re welcome,” he said, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth she was kissing him thoroughly and before he could think he was kissing her back heatedly, a thrill shooting through him at the hot, wet softness of her mouth.

He pushed her away suddenly, breathless, and looked at her closely. “Anya,” he whispered. “Are you sure this is what you want? What about Xander?”

“He’s moved on,” she said, sliding her hands to either side of his head and bringing her lips close to his. “And so have I. To you.” She paused and her eyes searched his. “I hope. I mean, I hope you want me. To move on to you.”

He grinned and fell on to his back, pulling her with him. “God, yes,” he said. “Please do.”

He pulled her to him, kissing her again, reveling in the silken slide of her tongue against his and reaching down to slide one hand underneath her skirt. She gasped against his mouth and broke away. “Oh. Oh, that’s nice,” she whispered, her eyes closing as she moved against his fingers.

“It certainly is,” he murmured, watching her face as he stroked her. “Do you generally make a habit of not wearing underwear?”

“Um, oh, oh, _God_ . . . um, I never wear underwear . . .”

“Bloody good,” he growled, watching her with unconcealed pleasure as her head fell back and she rocked hard against his fingers, feeling her entire body tighten and the need of his own body increase, and afte she came with a cry he eased her on to her back and they kissed again. He tried to move slowly, carefully, he wanted to linger, to make it so good for both of them. But she wouldn’t let him, desperate for touch after so long alone and soon he was thrusting inside her frantically, her legs tight around his waist and her mouth wet and hot against the skin of his neck. Then everything was sensation, smell and taste, the feel of her so tight around him and then he was gone.

***

“That was incredible.”

He kept his eyes closed but he could hear it in her tone. “But?”

“But I’ve got leaves in my hair and rocks up my ass.”

He laughed.

“Yeah, see how funny it is when you’ve got rocks up _your_ ass,” she grumbled.

“Perhaps we should return to the house,” he said. “Use a proper bed.”

“I’m all for that,” she said. She lay across his chest. “You know, I can do all those things in those videos you love so much.”

He flushed, and groaned again and clapped his hands over his eyes. Then he peeked at her through his fingers. “Really?”

She smiled brightly. “Yep!”

He leapt to his feet, straightening his clothes, and then reached down to pick her up and sling her over his shoulder and started back toward the house.

“This is extremely undignified,” she complained. “You could at least carry me in a more romantic manner.”

He smacked her on the ass.

“Hey!”

He smacked her again.

“Hey! Stop it, or no video reenactments for you!”

“So sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all.

“Giles, listen, I was serious about Spike . . .”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said, sighing.

“No, really, I think he would make a great Watcher, he’s . . .”

“I am. _not_ sending Spike to the Watcher’s Academy!”

“Giles, if you’d just listen to reason . . .” she said.

“This is never going to stop, is it?” he asked, picking his way carefully over fallen trees and rocks.

“What?”

“The bickering, the fighting, the constant irritation.”

“Oh. No. Probably not.”

He smiled. “Good,” he said, and smacked her on the ass once more.

***

End


End file.
